as it is
proper to throw water upon a fire, though it was conveyed to the place
without the leave of those from whose well it was drawn, or over whose
ground it was carried.

If the liberties of Europe be really in danger, if our treaties oblige
us to assist the queen of Hungary against the invaders of her
dominions, if the ambition of France requires to be repressed, and the
powers of Germany to be animated against her by the certain prospect
of a vigorous support, I cannot discover the propriety of this motion,
even supposing that we have not found from the ministers all the
respect that we have a right to demand. As a lawful authority may do
wrong, so right may be sometimes done by an unlawful power; and
surely, though usurpation ought to be punished, the benefits which
have been procured by it, are not to be thrown away. We may retain the
troops that have been hired, if they are useful, though we should
censure the ministry for taking them into pay.

But the motion to which our concurrence is now required, is a motion
by which we are to punish ourselves for the crime of the ministers, by
which we are about to leave ourselves defenceless, because we have
been armed without our consent, and to resign up all our rights and
privileges to France, because we suspect that they have not been
sufficiently regarded on this occasion by our ministers.

Those noble lords who have dwelt with the greatest ardour on this
omission, have made no proposition for censuring those whom they
condemn as the authors of it, though this objection must terminate in
an inquiry into their conduct, and has no real relation to the true
question now before us, which is, whether the auxiliaries be of any
use? If they are useless, they ought to be discharged without any
other reason; if they are necessary, they ought to be retained,
whatever censure may fall upon the ministry.

I am, indeed, far from thinking, that when your lordships have
sufficiently examined the affair, you will think your privileges
invaded, or the publick trepanned by artifice into expensive measures;
since it will appear that the ministry in reality preferred the most
honest to the safest methods of proceeding, and chose rather to hazard
themselves, than to practice or appear to practice any fraud upon
their country.

When it was resolved in council to take the troops of Hanover into the
pay of Britain, a resolution which, as your lordships have already
been informed, wa